The paper in brief
The paper introduces the Assistant–Scribe–Knowledge Checker (ASK) framework for turning guided interviews into structured specification documents. Its central argument is that useful knowledge capture needs more than a one-shot prompt or a blank form.
The framework separates three responsibilities: conducting an adaptive interview, organizing what has been said into a defined document structure, and checking the evolving document for gaps or weakly supported entries. In the authors' consulting-firm evaluation, this approach produced more complete and consistent documents than manual authoring, while participants reported that the interview format felt more natural and required less effort.
The paper is also available through the ECKM proceedings and DOI record.
Principles Flamekeeper applies
Start with guided elicitation
Tacit knowledge rarely arrives as a polished document. Flamekeeper uses a guided conversation to help people surface responsibilities, exceptions, relationships, decisions, and practical judgment that a generic handover template can miss.
Give the output a structure
Captured knowledge becomes useful when a successor can navigate it. Flamekeeper organizes contributions around the role and the transition, then prepares structured documents rather than leaving a manager with an undifferentiated transcript.
Check coverage while the expert is available
A polished paragraph can still omit the detail that makes work repeatable. Flamekeeper reviews the developing handover for missing context, unclear ownership, unsupported claims, and continuity risks, then proposes targeted follow-up questions while contributors can still answer them.
Keep people in the loop
Automation supports the process; it does not replace managerial judgment. Contributors can refine what was captured, and managers review the resulting documents and follow-up actions before the handover is considered ready.
Where Flamekeeper goes further
The paper focuses on structured specification documents in a consulting context. Flamekeeper applies related principles to employee transitions, where knowledge can be distributed across a departing employee, their manager, and teammates. The product also has to account for ownership, deadlines, action items, document exports, and the operational risk of a last working day.
This page describes the public design principles we adopted. It deliberately does not disclose internal prompts, evaluation thresholds, model configuration, or workflow orchestration.